UPDATE 1-Britain charges former ICAP brokers over Libor rigging

LONDON Mar 28 (Reuters) - British fraud prosecutors began
criminal proceedings against three former brokers from ICAP
, the world's top interdealer broker, as the UK side of a
global investigation into alleged rigging of crucial benchmark
interest rates cranked up.

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said on Friday it was
charging former ICAP derivatives broker Darrell Paul Read, his
supervisor Daniel Martin Wilkinson and Colin John Goodman, a
cash broker in ICAP's London office, in connection with the
manipulation of the London Interbank Offered Rate or Libor.

"It is alleged they conspired to defraud between 8 August
2006 and 7 September 2010," the SFO said in a statement.

The three will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on
April 15, when the charges will be read out, the SFO added.

The three men, who have already been charged by U.S.
prosecutors, bring to nine the number of people charged in
Britain over the manipulation of Libor, a central cog in the
global financial system.

Thirteen men have been charged globally over the scam to
date - 10 for alleged yen Libor manipulation and three for
alleged dollar Libor manipulation. The inquiry into Libor and a
related Euribor-rigging inquiry, which stretches from North
America to Asia, has also seen U.S. and European regulators fine
10 banks and brokerages a total of $6 billion to date.

ICAP, which in September settled regulatory investigations
into allegations of manipulation of yen Libor, declined to
comment.

Based on a survey of what banks would charge each other for
loans, traders are alleged to have colluded on answers that
could nudge the reported rates by amounts that were tiny but
translated into big profits.

The SFO has already charged six other men as part of its
Libor investigation, including Tom Hayes, a former yen
derivatives trader at UBS and Citigroup, who
pleaded not guilty in a London court in December.

Hayes, who has also been charged by U.S. prosecutors, is due
to stand trial in London in January 2015 on eight charges of
conspiring with staff from at least 10 banks and brokerages to
manipulate yen Libor rates between 2006 and 2010.

Terry Farr and James Gilmour, two brokers from RP Martin,
have also been charged and pleaded not guilty to similar
fraud-related offences in Britain. Their trial has been
scheduled for September 2015, in part to allow the SFO time to
bring charges against further alleged co-conspirators.

Although the sprawling Libor investigation has generated
fewer headlines since authorities announced parallel inquiries
into other benchmarks, such as those in foreign exchange and
swaps markets, the long-awaited Libor charges are a reminder of
the insidious nature of the alleged wrongdoing.

Libor is the primary benchmark for short-term interest rates
globally and is used as a reference rate for mortgages, credit
cards, student loans and other consumer lending products that
the Swiss-based Bank of International Settlements (BIS) has
estimated to be worth around $450 trillion.

ICAP is the world's largest interdealer broker, an industry
designed to match buyers and sellers of bonds, currencies and
swaps without bias.

But when the brokerage last September became one of 10
institutions fined by U.S. and European authorities - the
penalties now total around $6 billion - regulators laid bare a
world in which, they alleged, brokers deliberately infected
markets with false information to benefit their top client.

ICAP also remains under investigation by the European Union
antitrust regulator over the alleged rate-rigging scam.

Regulators are also examining whistleblower allegations that
other benchmarks, such as those governing foreign exchange, have
been manipulated.
(Additional reporting by Huw Jones; editing by Tom Pfeiffer and
Erica Billingham)